Leftovers after a big meal can be daunting when trying to come up with new ways to use them up. An economical cookie recipe, the cookie dough is soft and easy to mix, the cookies smell great when baking and everyone will enjoy their semi-sweet cake-like texture.
If a sweeter cookie taste is desired, a simple icing sugar glaze can be drizzled over these homemade cookies once cooled. This recipe can be doubled or halved; it just depends on the amount of leftover carrots available.
Carrot and Coconut Cookies Recipe
- 1 cup of mashed, well cooked carrots (about 4 medium)
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 1 cup of vegetable shortening
- 2 large eggs, slightly beaten
- 2 cups all purpose flour or whole wheat flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 3/4 cup shredded or flaked semi-sweet coconut
How to Put Carrot and Coconut Cookies Together
- Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
- In a large bowl, mix together mashed cooked carrots, sugar, shortening and eggs.
- In a separate bowl, add flour of choice, baking powder, salt and coconut. Stir to combine all dry ingredients evenly. Add to the wet ingredients by thirds, blending after each addition until done.
- Drop dough by round teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake approximately 8 minutes or until almost no indentation remains. The cookie surfaces will be irregular; the tips and edges should be turning just slightly brown when ready to remove from the oven.
Remove from cookie sheet immediately; cool completely. If desired, glaze with Simple Orange Glaze (below).
Cookie Recipe Yield:
Makes about 5 dozen carrot coconut cookies.
Simple Orange Glaze
- Combine 1 1/2 cups powdered icing sugar, 3 tbsp. butter, 2 to 3 tbsp. orange juice (with or without pulp) and 1 tbsp. finely grated orange zest in the order given, stirring after each addition.
- If needing the glaze to be thinner, increase the orange juice by one tsp. at a time until desired consistency is reached.
- Drizzle over completely cooled carrot and coconut cookies.
A Surprisingly Delicious Way to Use Leftover Vegetables
Carrot and coconut cookies are amazingly delicious, cake-like cookies. They are cake-like in texture making them easy for even young children to eat. Since the all purpose flour can be substituted with whole wheat flour, there is the added optional bonus of iron and fiber in the recipe.
As the yield for a single recipe of these delicious cookies is quite high, the recipe has measurements that can be easily halved for less time in the kitchen or when the available cooked carrots aren't as plentiful. Creative leftover recipes that children and men both enjoy aren't that easy to find; try baking these carrot and coconut cookies the next time there are leftover vegetables and watch them disappear.
Deborah Read - A writer on movies, music and their history for 35 years, Deborah IS trivia. Her 27+ years of decorating work has put her consulting ...
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